Extreme vibe shift

All about the vibes

I mentioned last week that colleagues had told me about how the tone and culture of the Civil Service changed dramatically the last time there was a wholesale change of government in 2010. Well, I wasn’t there then, so I can’t speak to that, but I do know what’s happened this week. This whole week has been an extreme vibe shift.

There was this video from the Prime Minister on Monday morning.

And this announcement about big changes to the digital centre of government.

And that’s just the macro-level, hyper-visible stuff.

The more invisible bit this week has been trying to unlearn the way of thinking of the past 15 years, and quickly try to pivot into the lexicon of the new government. We’re all at it; tea-leaf reading from statements we’re seeing in the press, or at all staff calls, or from internal read outs.

For obvious reasons¹, I won’t be drawn on whether I think this new tone is better or worse than the previous one, but it certainly feels different to me.

The forbidden phrase

I have a personal rule. If I am faced with a situation where I feel an overwhelming urge to say the phrase “I told you so”, and I say it out loud more than three times in a job, then I probably need a new job! This week has resulted in my second utterance of that forbidden phrase.

The particular annoyance that led to the utterance this week has been a long-running palaver relating to finance and the applicability of VAT to certain elements of our programme spend. You’d think this would be an easy question to answer. Given how long it has been since I raised the question, and that we still do not have a definitive answer; you’d be wrong. Anyway, the details aren’t important. The point is, the forbidden phrase was uttered. One utterance left before it’s time to move on.